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The biggest education-related food fight during the past two legislative sessions will dominate the agenda of the Florida House’s top education committee again this year.

A controversial bill that, among other things, tethered teacher pay to student performance and put an end to tenure passed last session after former Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a similar bill in 2010.

In an interview this week, St. Augustine Republican Bill Proctor, chairman of the House Education Committee, wants to make sure the 43-page law is implemented correctly. That and tackling higher education reforms will be his committee’s top two priorities.

“We just want to make sure things go smoothly,” Proctor said of the law. “There is just so much there that I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure things go well.”

The state’s top teachers union filed a lawsuit in September seeking to overturn the law because they say it “swept away the right of employees to negotiate their wages and terms and conditions of employment” promised in the Florida Constitution.

Proctor voted for the bill and disagrees with the union’s pushback.

In his last legislative session in the House — he’s term-limited — Proctor said he will also task his committee with wading through a raft of complex higher-education reform proposals.

Gov. Rick Scott has floated the idea of using a set of reforms implemented in Texas that emphasize merit pay and limit tenure for professors. A host of other plans and rebuttals have spun off the Texas plan, and Proctor said that his committee will attempt to dissect those plans.

“I have asked our staff to pull some of the best proposals out of those plans, and we really plan on taking a good look,” Proctor said.

In addition, he has called all 11 state university presidents to appear before his committee on Jan. 14 to discuss reform issues.

Proctor is not sure if his committee will propose a higher education reform bill, or just craft recommendations about how Florida should move forward. He said he understands the Legislature’s plate is already full, making sweeping higher education reforms a heavy lift.

“The budget will always be a big issue, and there is redistricting, too,” he said. “I still think there is always a chance to do good things.”

Proctor would not speculate if his committee would put forward a committee bill on any other issues.

“I have two notebooks that are six inches thick, if not more. One is for higher education plans and the other is about that bill,” he said. “It’s keeping me busy.”